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Home is where the heart is.

Vault Door.

This is the photo that originally caught my attention.

This is the original photo.



















I'm always intrigued by photography. I think my favorite part of photography is how a person can dictate what is included (and also, what is left out). The banner (top image) was the original culprit of my interest - a cross-section view of a vault door in b&w with added focus to accentuate each lever.

I followed my nose and stumbled upon the original photograph (second image) which included a larger portrayal of the vault door. I was surprised to find this, after having been satisfied with the smaller section shown in the first picture I found. This made me wonder: am I better off having seen the whole door? Or was it more satisfying to have seen just a glimpse of it.

This line of thinking applies in all things we do. Sometimes things seem more appealing when ingesting a small glimpse or taste of it. We can appreciate a higher quantity of things when they come in small doses--that is what our culture is thriving off of at this very moment. The flip side to this? Maybe I really was better off having seen the larger picture of the vault door. The detail captured by the photographer's camera of the bottom levers/bolts/knobs/etc. is truly beautiful.

Moral of this story: Don't let the photographer behind the lens dictate what you see. If you stumble across something that truly intrigues you, do your homework and look for the bigger picture.

Failure, success & neither

" The math is magical: you can pile up lots of failures and still keep rolling, but you only need one juicy success to build a career.

The killer is the category called 'neither'. If you spend your days avoiding failure by doing not much worth criticizing, you'll never have a shot at success. Avoiding the thing that's easy to survive keeps you from encountering the very thing you're after.

And yet we market and work and connect and create as if just one failure might be the end of us. "

Seth Godin 2010 (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/)

I read this about five times upon receiving my daily dose of Seth Godin's blog (which you need to follow if you have any interest in marketing/pr/comm/buss/etc.) a few days ago.

Why is it brilliant? It reminded me of a teacher giving a student a prompt:

"Give me insight as to why people shy away from failure and in turn, shy away from success. Oh yeah, and do it in five sentences or less. You have twenty minutes."

Godin deserves an A+ for nailing the hypothetical assignment.

Thank you, Paul & John

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Eleanor Rigby by Tommy Steele
December, 1982
Liverpool, United Kingdom

There is a fine line between solitude and loneliness.

We all have times where we may feel particularly lonely, whether it be in the car while driving from one place to another, hours of sleeplessness, or simply having nothing of note to do on a given day/night. However, I know that I know nothing about going about a continually lonely life.

I love to people-watch, and in doing so I am both calmed and saddened. Too often do my eyes fall upon a person much like Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie. I think of this song more often than the majority of other songs I have been exposed to in my lifetime. It is truly relevant and timeless in that no matter what progress is made, there will always be the Eleanor Rigby's and Father McKenzie's of every town.

Thank you, Paul and John.

Eleanor Rigby was never performed live by the Beatles.

Night Lights

The often-haunting nightscapes of Night Lights reveal how city environments can become both isolating and poetic with the absence of daylight. Helen K. Garber, Ginny Mangrum, and Bill Sosin create art from urban streets stilled by darkness, veering from spooky landscapes to lovely abstract compositions of illumination and shadow. Moving and evocative, the exhibit is a chance to see three photographers respond to the special challenges of photographing under the blackness of night.

Visited DNJ Gallery (http://www.dnjgallery.net/) this past Saturday for the opening of this exhibit and was impressed. I chose to attend for several reasons:

1. The title 'Night Lights' - viewing the city lights at night is a classically calming activity, often the perfect setting for reflection after a long, hectic day
2. The picture - the beautiful photograph by Bill Sosin, one of the featured artists in this exhibit
3. The extremely well-written press release for this event (shown above) - a PR person who 'gets it'; upon reading I was stopped dead in my tracks and knew I would be making the drive from Long Beach to Los Angeles for the opening night.

Origins.

Do you wonder where the self resides
Is it in the head or between your sides
And who would be the one who will decide
Its true location
-andrew bird, dark matter

There is so much going on.

War, unemployment, immigration policies, environmental issues, social barriers and bridges, innovation, technology, genocide, trafficking, you name it. When sitting down to look around at the surrounding world, it can be disheartening.

However,

Do you ever take the time to notice the old couple sitting outside of the ice cream shop enjoying an ice cream cone in the sun?

Do you sit down to read a book, magazine article, poem, etc. and come across a line that makes you stop dead in your tracks?

Do you listen to a song and hear a lyric that shakes you? Or a tone in the voice of the singer that lets you know they sincerely get something that others often fail to convey?


This is my blog.
I aim to collect all of these things - the old couple's ice cream date, the line from the book, the lyric. Pictures that somehow relate to the sentiment they create will more than likely be included. These moments of beauty whether in a dark or bright sense are where I find motivation.

This is where my 'self' resides.